.338 300 grain A-Tip in F-Open

[davidjoe]

Edit: 500 Atips shipped out to me today on a back order. That’s enough to fully test them out, now, at 1,000.

 

[davidjoe]

Today was 1,000 yard club Sunday, one week before the state long range. This was the first time I’ve shot these bullets at 1,000. The foggy morning became sunny with moderate breezes of single digits.

I shot three different rifles in three matches. First Z-Rail Kestros with .338 Atips. A Manners F-Class Saum with Berger 190’s. Last a Manners F-Class with .338 Atips.

The big question, will these beat an rsaum? No.

My impressions:

1) I was relay 3 of 3, but the Z-Rail stock got the morning match. The new 6 groove Krieger had every reason to shoot well. The SD at 1,000 was 10.8 and the average velocity at target was 1,874, for close to 2,900 FPS. The Jewel BR trigger was flawless. This stock handles rsaum loads as good as anything I have shot but it does not like the Lapua Magnum. You must stop it smartly at the risk of scope eye, which is really wasting its forte, and therein sometimes the front rails rise up in the rest and it torques to the right. I’m uncertain whether it would still do that if permitted more or less unlimited recoil as with a .284, but with such long travel injury would be risked.

With it I was down six 8’a and eight 9’s from good loads, while it consistently shoots my high scores with 7’s. If it were a combination I had to utilize it might be fixable by reducing the charge, but that stock can simply rejoin a .284 or Saum.

2) the rsaum and next LM I shot are basically twin guns apart from caliber. The second LM is a Krieger 5R. As with other K 5R’s I have, they are accurate but must be downloaded relative to standard grooves. I don’t know if even Krieger is aware of that, but they have a tighter bore. The difference in LM is 4 grains of powder, and about 2 in .284, to show similar primer and brass pressure.

The Saum shot Berger 190’s because 195’s have blown up. Simply put, it shot a smaller group. Perhaps the wind was a bit calmer for it, but pretty clearly it shot a smaller group.

That wide 8 seemed like a suspect Doppler effect mark to me but it was followed by 9 that was still right.







3) The next target was the 5R .338. The stock was more settled through recoil. It was not uncomfortable at all even without an adjustable rear. It dropped more points than the saum but only half as many as the other .338 dropped.

The group size is only encouraging if you focus on the fact that just three shots were out of contention for a ten due to vertical. The proximity of the three 9’s makes me wonder about a recurring condition like a boil (more likely a let up in the head wind component).



Those holding efforts were uniform muted trials between the guns. I didn’t want to wholly ignore 9’s but at the same time I was very curious how the bullets would fare relative to each other, and parsing out what is vibration or me versus the wind so I used small, walking in calls and there was no effort to skew the group by going for broke with risky or major hold offs. That worked better on the saum.